A string walks into a bar, climbs up on a barstool and orders a beer. The bartender, a bit perplexed looks at him and says, “you’re a string. Get out of here. We don’t serve strings in here.”

Angrily, the string leaves the bar and in an effort to disguise himself twists himself up and tousles one end. He walks back into the bar, climbs up a barstool and in a different voice announces, “barkeep, I’ll have a beer.”

The bartender cocks his head and ponders for a moment, then opines, “hey, aren’t you that string I just kicked out of here?” To which the string replies, “oh, no, I’m afraid not.”

* * *

Sailing is not just about pointing your boat in the direction and letting your boat catch the wind. Or at least that is my expert opinion after five days of sailing instruction on Ischia. Sailing is about observing, understanding and evaluating your surroundings, staying aware of your situation and taking what nature – the wind and the sea – gives you. It takes knowledge, skills, patience and humility to take your boat on to the water and to return safely. And it requires knots.

And so our group of five novice sailors spent hours on the sea steering our 40’ sloop Istria and trimming its sails. We hoisted sails – the main, jib, genoa, gennaker (but, alas, never the spinnaker). We tacked and jibed. But we also practiced the mundane but surprisingly difficult. How to tie a bowline knot, the most basic and useful knot known to sailors but one that is apparently beyond the mental capacity of a group of college educated lawyers, software engineers, government workers and healthcare professionals. The rabbit comes out of the hole, goes around the tree and back down the hole? Thank you but I have no idea what you’re talking about.

We spent a day fishing out of the sea our make believe man overboard, a water jug dressed in an orange life preserver that, interestingly, our captain Andrea named Bill (the name predates his association with me, or at least he told me it did). The classic man overboard drill is one of the most important maneuvers one can accomplish and as a group we did a terrific job with some of the basics – one crewmember throws the life ring and one keeps a constant watch on the man overboard. Our maneuvering of the boat, tacking back toward the victim, making a sweeping 270 degree tack and easing up alongside the stricken crewmate was accomplished well enough at times, but also resulted in poor Bill being run over by the boat or staring helplessly as it rushed past him, unable to stop and render assistance. Talk about adding insult to injury.

We spent classroom time at capitano Andrea’s B&B, the Casa della Vela, learning about the points of sail, how to trim your sails on different angles to the wind. We learned the difference between true wind and apparent wind (not to be confused with heir apparent) and high pressure systems and shore breezes.
All this practice, this exercise, this work was new, exciting, frustrating and rewarding. And it was necessary. Because when you are out on the water if you cannot see the forces of nature and understand instinctively and instantly how to use them, rather than to vainly fight against them, you might as well be in a power boat.

It’s pretty safe to say that after five days of learning and practicing with il capitano, what we see when we stand on shore is a lot different than the world we saw just five days earlier. And although we surely learned how to hoist a main, to trim a gennaker and to execute a jibe, it was the little things, the flaking the jib, the tying the bowline, respecting the wind that, one laid on top of the other changed us, made us not yet into sailors but set us on that path. If asked “aren’t you that landlubber I just kicked out of here,” I’m pretty certain that each of the five of us today would resoundingly reply, “I’m a frayed knot.”

Ci vediamo!
Bill and Suzy